Among national holidays, Labor Day gets high marks for a number of reasons apart from a legitimate excuse for missing work.

In Colorado and other tourist-happy states, it generally stands as the demarcation for the departure of most of the recreational vehicles full of flatlanders.

For the remainder of autumn, resident outdoors folks are less likely to be stuck behind behind a huffing motorhome on a narrow pass or find a favorite campground jampacked with people who talk funny.

This may seem like a provincial, even inhospitable view of things, but for those of us jammed up with visitors for the past three months, it’s a natural response. I suspect the folks who live by the beach feel the same way about us when we come flocking in for the winter.

The other benefit of this period shift is much more personal and down to earth. Make that water, in this case. Labor Day weekend generally marks a change in the weather as conspicuous as changing leaves. Some years, true summer holds on until the middle of September. Other times, it doesn’t survive August.

This year, the change came Friday afternoon, just about on schedule. To the lament of many, it sent northeast Colorado doves packing toward the sunny south and got gardeners wondering just how long the petunias might last.

But for another group of outdoor enthusiasts, cooler weather comes as a godsend, relief from a months-long malaise from oppressive heat. These are the lake fishermen, more precisely those who fish still water in the shallows.

With cooling surface temperature and a steady slanting of the sun’s rays, nearly every species of fish moves up in the water column, more available to whatever offering anglers choose to present. Nowhere is this more true than the various lakes and ponds along the Front Range.

On Sunday, the full afternoon sun still was high when the clan began to gather at Aurora’s Quincy Reservoir, perhaps a holdover from the previous day when clouds and cool put trout on the prowl most of the day.

Herman deGala spoke of landing 20 rainbows in about two hours of casting, which might sound like bragging for anyone else. Catching lots of trout at Quincy and other urban impoundments isn’t much of a chore for deGala, who doesn’t miss many days on the lake near his home.

As mentioned briefly on these pages in an earlier article about imitating Calibaetis mayflies, deGala is devoted to a particular pattern devised by Thornton innovator Shane Stalcup called the Gilled Nymph.

No matter that the season for this particular insect largely is past. The trout don’t seem to know this, and deGala isn’t about to tell them. While fishermen standing only a few yards away catch little, deGala uses the pattern with great success.

Claude Sullice knows the feeling all too well.

“One day he’d caught about 30 and I had none. He wouldn’t say what fly he was using until I told him how to make creme brulee,” said Sullice, a Parisian who sometimes works as a chef.

Fly selection aside, this same pattern of autumn action can be repeated at locations all over the region. Allowing for variations from weather pulses, action should remain steady through October.

As for acquiring the Gilled Nymph, you can find the recipe in Stalcup’s remarkable fly-tying book, “Mayflies Top to Bottom.” Local fly emporiums such as Charlie’s Fly Box and Two Guys Fly Shop keep the pattern in stock.

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